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Prospect Watch: Early summer NCAA commitments

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Prospect Watch: Early summer NCAA commitments

Carolina Hurricanes pick Brendan Collier is leaving Boston U. for rival Northeastern, while Michigan Tech, Ohio State and Boston College also picked up some solid futures recently.

Commitments tend to slow down a bit in the late spring and early summer, so I've put together a batch of pledges from recent months for another roundup of NCAA news. As per usual, these commitments were culled from College Hockey Inc. and the excellent page it maintains on the topic.

Brendan Collier, LW, Northeastern University

Collier, who was selected 189th overall by Carolina in 2012, was reportedly cut by Boston University after his freshman season this year and has now signed on to play across town with the rival Huskies. The undersized left winger was a great high schooler in Massachusetts, lauded for his passion on the ice and the intangibles he brought, but the Terriers have a big recruiting class coming in and it seems as though he wasn't in their future plans. Collier will miss a year in the transfer process and suit up for Northeastern in 2015-16.

Kieffer Bellows, C, Boston University

The son of former NHLer Brian Bellows has already made noise in his home state of Minnesota, winning a state high school title with Edina. Bellows is very highly acclaimed as a scorer and burgeoning power forward, while his name is already being mentioned in relation to the 2016 NHL draft. He'll join the Terriers in 2016-17.

Robby Jackson, C, St. Cloud State

I recently saw Jackson in action and Huskies fans can mark down the 2015-16 campaign as his arrival date in Minnesota. The skilled center will return to the United States League's Chicago Steel in the fall, where he will likely put up big numbers.

Jacob Olson, D, Michigan Tech

Like Jackson, Olson was in Buffalo for the Select 17s tournament and earned a spot on Team USA's entry at this summer's Ivan Hlinka Memorial tourney in the Czech Republic/Slovakia. Olson is a big boy at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds already and not the type of player you want to go into the corner against. He is slated to return to the Minnesota high school ranks for 2014-15 as a member of the Hill-Murray Pioneers, a top-flight program. He'll head up to Houghton in 2016-17.

Miguel Fiddler, LW, Ohio State

A fifth-round draft choice of the Florida Panthers in 2014, Fiddler was a teammate of Bellows' with Edina and led the Hornets in scoring. The talented winger will head off to the USHL's Lincoln Stars next year before decamping for the Buckeyes in 2015-16.

Jeremy Bracco, RW, Boston College

Undersized but immensely talented, Bracco played for the U.S. NTDP last year, where he led the under-17s in scoring with 71 points in 54 games, largely as a playmaker. An early Harvard commit, Bracco recently switched to Boston College, but it will also be interesting to see what kind of push the Ontario League's Kitchener Rangers make. If he stays on the college path, Bracco will head to the Eagles in 2015-16.

Liam Coughlin, LW, Boston University

A fifth-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 2014, Coughlin is a late-1994 birthday who played in the B.C. League for Vernon last season, where he posted OK numbers. The real sell here is size, as Coughlin comes in at 6-foot-3, 201 pounds with plenty of power forward potential. He'll join the Terriers in 2015-16.

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Dubnyk carrying Wild and putting together a Vezina-type season

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Dubnyk carrying Wild and putting together a Vezina-type season

How good has Devan Dubnyk been for the Minnesota Wild this season? Well, according to his coach: "If he was in Toronto, there'd be no Carey Price."

It’s nowhere on the scale of grand gestures when compared to the ‘triple low-five’ P.K. Subban and Carey Price used to do at center ice, but Eric Staal and Devan Dubnyk of the Minnesota Wild have a rather interesting post-win ritual. At some point, Staal comes to Dubnyk in the dressing room and says, “You looked like you knew what you were doing tonight,” and the two of them bump fists. “I appreciate that,” is Dubnyk’s response. “I’m just trying to trick everybody just a little bit longer.”

But the fact of the matter is, Dubnyk is not tricking anyone. He’s playing in the best league in the world, one where posers and phonies get exposed pretty quickly. And he’s not only playing, he’s been a dominant force for the Wild this season. Among goalies with a minimum of eight appearances this season, no goalie matches Dubnyk’s .946 save percentage or his 1.65 goals-against average. His four shutouts also leads the league. With 35 saves in a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday night, Dubnyk was a winner in his 300th career start.

Them’s Vezina numbers. And Wild coach Bruce Boudreau, who knows a good sound bite when he sees one, had a pretty bold proclamation when it came to Dubnyk’s status among his brethren in the NHL this season. “If he was in Toronto, there’d be no Carey Price,” Boudreau said. “I’m just saying media-wise. I mean, he hasn’t allowed more than three goals in any game he’s played this year. He’s held us in. It was 17-3 in shots in the third period and they didn’t get any.”

Much has been made of Dubnyk’s renaissance since he adopted a technique known as head trajectory, which in its simplest terms, is tracking the puck with your head instead of your eyes. Before Dubnyk started doing it, he was out of the NHL, skating as a Black Ace as the Montreal Canadiens fourth goaltender in the playoffs. Since then, he’s been an elite goaltender in the NHL and he’s being paid like one on the second year of a six-year deal worth $26 million.

And there might be a reason for that. The past couple of seasons, teams have collapsed in front of their nets more than ever, leaving a bunch of bodies from both teams in the way. In those instances, tracking those pucks has become more important than ever. “You have to pick and choose when I’m going to use my height to find pucks and when I’m going to need to get low,” Dubnyk said. “I think it’s more on the rebounds when those pucks do get through or if they hit shin pads. If you can look first, you’re eliminating moves that don’t seem to happen and you’re just more efficient. I always say it should look relatively boring when I’m back there.”

The ability to self-analyze quickly and adapt also helps. Case in point was the goal scored by Tyler Bozak, who pounced on a turnover, then undressed Minnesota defenseman Matt Dumba before firing a backhander over Dubnyk’s shoulder. Dubnyk was clearly upset with himself after the goal, but instead of falling apart, he steeled his resolve and completely shut the door on the Maple Leafs.

“That goal goes in and I give myself a quick talking to and I realize that’s not my best way to stop a puck and move on,” Dubnyk said. “And just make sure I do it properly the next time.” And for a guy who sees the ice so well, Dubnyk didn’t notice the shaft of Mitch Marner’s broken stick in front of him for the longest time. In fact, it wasn’t until Ben Smith scored. “Was that the stick or the ice? It hit something,” Dubnyk said. “I actually think it was the ice. I’ll have to watch the replay, but it skipped hard.”

Three years ago, when Dubnyk went from Edmonton to Nashville to Montreal in one season and finished in the American League, those kinds of goals would have destroyed him. But that summer, Dubnyk signed with the Phoenix Coyotes and joined Mike Smith, who was plucked off the same scrap heap as Dubnyk a couple of years before. Then came the trade to Minnesota, then he saved their season, got a big contract and hasn’t looked in the rearview mirror…except to appreciate what he has now.

“It’s a position that’s extremely mental and when things start to pile up, it’s not a position you can play if you’re second guessing what you’re doing,” Dubnyk said. “It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for anybody. That whole year that seemed like forever, I always believed I’d get another shot somewhere. I’ve said it before, but it just allowed me to be grateful that I have a job in the best league in the world.”

The Sharks attempt to decipher a child’s drawing and the result is hilarious

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The Sharks attempt to decipher a child’s drawing and the result is hilarious

The Sharks did their best to decipher which member of the team was depicted in a child's drawing. Come for the reactions, stay for Dylan DeMelo's dissection of the hair.

Portrait drawing takes years of practice, a keen eye and some serious skill. Or, for any child with a handful of crayons and the back of a paper placemat at the local diner, it takes about 15 minutes while you wait for the pancakes to get placed on the table.

The best thing about a kid’s drawing, though, is that their way of sketching out what they see often comes with amazing results. Be it tiny arms and legs sticking out of one big, round head or three-fingered stick people with L-shaped feet, there’s always something hilariously unique about each drawing and almost every doodle requires some sort of explanation.

That is unless you’re the San Jose Sharks, in which case you go in blind and try your hand at guessing what — or, in this instance, who — you’re seeing. Watch as the Sharks try to determine which teammate’s photo has been drawn by a young member of their FINatical Kids Club:

The reactions off the top, especially those of Marc-Edourard Vlasic and Mikkel Boedker, are great, and Tomas Hertl’s half-laughing ask of “Who can be this?!” will crack you up. Then there’s the dissection of the “flow” by Dylan DeMelo, right down to the haircare products. But nothing about this video is better than Brenden Dillon’s unexpected self-burn.

While he’s trying to figure out who exactly the drawing is, he says that whoever is depicted in the drawing has “a face for radio.” Turns out it was you all along, Brenden. Surprise!

You’ve got give the Sharks credit where it’s due, though. Almost all of the players in the video ended up getting the drawing correct — few looked more shocked than Joe Thornton — and they all had their reasons for guessing the way they did, though most of the guesses had to do with the hair.

Blackhawks emergency backup Eric Semborski gets his own rookie card

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Blackhawks emergency backup Eric Semborski gets his own rookie card

Eric Semborski landed himself the opportunity of a lifetime when he strapped on the pads as an emergency backup for the Blackhawks, and now Topps has commemorated the moment with a Semborski trading card.

Eric Semborski’s dream came true when he stepped on the ice as an NHL goaltender, albeit an emergency backup, on Dec. 3, and now he’s got an incredible piece of memorabilia to show for it.

Just days after the 23-year-old made his rookie debut, trading card company Topps has unveiled the official Eric Semborski rookie card. That’s right: the 23-year-old has his very own trading card. The card is part of Topps’ NOW series, which features milestone or memorable moments and are made available shortly after the achievement.

Semborski’s stint as the Blackhawks emergency goaltender came due to regular starting netminder Corey Crawford was sent to hospital to undergo an appendectomy. The Blackhawks were scrambling to find a replacement for Crawford, and a backup for Scott Darling, when they started asking around to find an emergency amateur netminder to fill in.

Semborski, a former goaltender at Temple University, was working with children at the Flyers’ practice facility when he was called to sign on for emergency duty. Hilariously, Semborski wore a Blackhawks No. 50 jersey — which most will recognize as Crawford’s number — when he took the ice for warmup. Of the chance to stop NHL shots in warmup, Semborski said it was the best moment of his life.

Possibly the only thing that could have made the moment better was if Semborski actually got into the game and, as it turns out, that was very nearly the case. Post-game, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said that had the Flyers scored on the empty net to stretch their lead in the Saturday afternoon contest, he would have thrown Semborski into the net for the final minute of the outing.

As for the card, there’s no chance it will be worth anything near what a Connor McDavid rookie card will be worth in a decade, but it’s certainly a nice piece of merchandise for the one-day NHL netminder.

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Philip Larsen got knocked unconscious, the Canucks retailiated without knowing what happened, and they could have hurt their teammate even worse in the process.

The incident was horrific. We can all agree on that.

Tuesday night in New Jersey, Vancouver Canucks blueliner Philip Larsen skated behind his net to retrieve a puck. He had no idea Devils left winger Taylor Hall was pursuing the same puck. They collided heavily. Larsen bashed his head on the ice and was knocked out cold.

It was a scary scene, undoubtedly, one that understandably evoked a ton of emotion from Larsen's teammates. It was hardly a surprise to see a flurry of Vancouver players swarm Hall and make him fight.

It was a shame, however, for multiple reasons. First off, the hit wasn't dirty. It wasn't even a deliberate bodycheck. Hall leaned back on his skates to slow his momentum and held out his arms as if protecting himself from imminent impact. It was more of a crash than a bonecrushing hit. We can debate whether Larsen's head was the principal point of contact – I don't believe it was at all – but it's irrelevant when assessing Hall's guilt. There was no intent there. He won't be disciplined by the NHL for an accident.

And yet, thanks to the sport's culture of immediate and forceful vengeance, Hall had to fight anyway. In the spur of the moment, in the heat of elite competition, players are simply too jacked up to take a breath and assess the situation. They see a comrade fall and, in mere milliseconds, seek and destroy whoever caused the harm.

“You always have a problem with a hit when one of your guys gets hit hard," Canucks coach Willie Desjardins told the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford after the the game. "It doesn’t matter if it’s a clean hit. You have a problem when a guy gets hit that hard. I think all coaches would.”

The ironic thing about this tough-guy mentality is that it could end up pushing one of the toughest things about hockey out of the game: good, clean hits. If the swarm mentality goes on much longer, the only guys willing to lay opponents out with big hits will be those ready and willing to drop the gloves right afterward. Sooner or later players might decide it's not worth sitting five minutes and/or risking injury just to put a lick on a guy. And, in Hall's case, he wasn't even trying to drill Larsen.

Will we ever stop seeing players attacked after clean hits? I doubt it. The revenge assault is a crime of passion, a snap decision. But maybe, just maybe, the Canucks and players all over the world can learn a bit from what happened right after Larsen got hit. Watch:

The first instinct, sadly, is not to help Larsen, but to destroy Hall. Center Michael Chaput immediately starts a fight. That causes a pileup of players from both teams – all around the unconscious Larsen. It's downright disturbing to see him getting kicked in the head by his own teammates’ skates. Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom tries to box out Larsen and keep him safe. Markus Granlund tries as well but has to step over and onto Larsen in the process. It’s a miracle Larsen wasn’t cut. None of that would've happened had Chaput thought of Larsen first.

The ugly scene is a reminder that, right after a teammate takes a massive hit, the first priority should be to protect him. The best way to do that isn't to attack his attacker. It's to attend to the teammate first. There's plenty of time to review what happened and take down the perpetrator's number for later in the game. That's what jumbo-tron replays are for. And, in cases like Hall's, the violence would be averted altogether if players watched the replay and realized it was an accident.

Sadly, the idea is a pipe dream, and I don’t expect players to learn from Larsen's fate anytime soon. But we can always hope.